EA member Rhodri Thomas took part on 24 June in a conference on fiscal decentralisation and sub-national public finances.
 
The Member of the Welsh Assembly stated that, despite some sporadic references to regional finance in Public Expenditure, the EU still gives insufficient attention to the role of sub-national authorities.
 
Mr Thomas calls for a wider policy debate and a publication of a Green Paper that would also address the need for more public/private finance synergies. Moreover, he stressed the importance of EU funding, in particular post financial crisis,"pressure on budgets, particularly capital investments, is biting hard. This forces LRAs and people to think innovatively about services and private/public partnerships are getting a higher place on the agenda", he said. In this regard, he mentioned REACT and PROACT, practical examples from Wales of immediate responses to the crisis, both of which were possible through the use of the ESF and which aimed to keep workers in jobs in companies facing economic difficulties and also to get the recently unemployed reskilled and back into the workforce.